Sharon Van Etten / Are We There / 2014
Every Time the Sun Comes Up
wry, loose, self-mocking
This is Sharon Van Etten at her loosest and most winking, a track built on a single sardonic refrain about self-sabotage rather than a conventional narrative arc. It plays like a private joke that became a public song, mixing domestic mess with dry self-deprecation.
self-sabotage domestic disorder irony and deflection anxiety tied to daily cycles artistic self-awareness
Who's speaking
A first-person speaker addressing an intimate other (or possibly herself), casual and unreliable in tone, more interested in confession-as-joke than confession-as-catharsis.
What happens
There isn't a plot so much as a loop: the speaker keeps returning to the same admission that daylight brings trouble, interspersing it with odd, almost throwaway details about domestic mishaps and public perception. The song doesn't resolve so much as trail off into a stray, almost accidental aside about headphones falling off.
How it's built
The song is built around a repeated refrain that functions like a chorus but never quite yields to a contrasting verse-chorus dynamic. Instead, fragments of image and thought are dropped in between repetitions, giving the sense of a sketch or demo rather than a fully architected pop song. The ending deflates rather than resolves, trailing into hums and a mumbled apology.
Section by section
Opening lines
The song opens with clipped, almost nonsensical phrasing about pacing and patience, setting a tone of restrained irritation before the first refrain arrives. The syntax feels intentionally broken, as if capturing a thought mid-formation rather than a polished statement.'
First refrain
“every time the sun comes up, I'm in trouble”
The repeated line becomes the song's emotional center of gravity, though its meaning stays deliberately vague. It could refer to hangovers, arguments, or a more diffuse anxiety about starting the day, but the ambiguity is the point: trouble is habitual, cyclical, tied to nothing more specific than the fact of morning arriving.
Middle verse
“one-hit wonder”
Here the song turns briefly toward self-aware humor about artistic reputation, mocking the pressure of repeating success. The domestic image that follows, mixing helpfulness with crude mess, undercuts any pretense of seriousness, suggesting the speaker sees her own contradictions as comic rather than tragic.
Second variation on refrain
A slight lyrical shift changes 'every' to 'even,' subtly intensifying the claim: trouble isn't just habitual but inescapable, present even under conditions that might otherwise offer respite.
Closing fragment
The song doesn't build to a climax but instead dissolves into wordless sound and a stray comment about a technical mishap, as if the recording itself is admitting exhaustion or indifference to closure. This anti-ending reinforces the track's overall posture of shrugging honesty.
Craft
- refrain
- The recurring line about sunrise bringing trouble anchors the song, turning a mundane daily event into a recurring emotional trigger, almost like a superstition.
- bathos
- Grand or wry statements about identity and fame are undercut by absurd, low domestic details, deflating any self-seriousness.
- self-referential aside
- The closing mention of technical failure (headphones falling off) breaks the fourth wall of the song, blurring the line between studio moment and lyric, reinforcing the track's loose, unfinished feel.
Reading it
The most persuasive reading treats this as a loose, semi-improvised piece capturing anxious self-sabotage with humor rather than despair -- the speaker knows she keeps causing her own trouble and finds that knowledge almost funny rather than devastating. An alternative reading could hear it as a critique of external expectations (fame, romantic domesticity) framed through absurdist detail, with the refrain functioning as a kind of tired joke about being unable to escape scrutiny or judgment once daylight (visibility) arrives.
Context
Are We There (2014) is generally considered one of Van Etten's more expansive, emotionally raw records, but this particular track feels like an outlier -- looser, more fragmented, closer to a demo or in-studio moment than a fully composed song. I don't have confirmed biographical or production details about this specific track, so this reading leans heavily on the text and general knowledge of the album's tone.
Listen for
- the flat, almost spoken delivery of the refrain, which resists melodic resolution
- the deliberate roughness of the verses, which sound closer to studio chatter than lyric writing
- the shift from 'every' to 'even' in the refrain, subtly raising the stakes
- the ending's collapse into humming and a stray remark, refusing a clean finish
About Sharon Van Etten
Sharon Katharine Van Etten is an American singer-songwriter, musician and actress. Originally from New Jersey, and currently based in Los Angeles, Van Etten's music is noted for its indie rock aesthetic and personal lyrical content.
b. 1981 / United States
Full biography and catalogue